Miata Turbo Forum - Boost cars, acquire cats.

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sonofthehill Mar 31, 2026 07:45 PM

Yep, drag racing is very humbling. I can think of some things you can improve. If you are doing a wet burnout, you need to burn 2nd not 1st to get enough temp in the 4 seconds allowed. Obviously, the wing is probably robbing a few mph there. A full tank is what I always run, extra weight in the trunk will help too, don't go with 1/2 a tank unless you want to spin. Video looked pretty fun.

SimBa Mar 31, 2026 09:13 PM

I'll take whatever advice you have haha. I actually watched your video on burnouts and realized why you mentioned using 2nd shortly after I pegged redline in 1st. I assume more wheel speed also means more heat.

Interesting point on the full tank. I figured less weight would be better but I hadn't considered weight over the rear axle. I probably need to launch 1-2000 RPM higher to actually get the tires spinning.

Firebird has 100 MPH and 110 MPH stickers depending on the speeds you hit, so the wing will probably come off next time, because I like stickers.

Let me know if you ever find yourself up north.

curly Mar 31, 2026 11:22 PM

That's pretty typical of a Miata build, except for SofH of course. I have 330hp dyno'd HP, I've been 3-4 times, and was super happy to hit 12s. 12.971 to be exact. The rest is tires, gearing, suspension, and a lotta practice. Those first three I'm not too keen on changing just for 11 seconds of racing, so I'm happy where I ended up.

Fireindc Mar 31, 2026 11:27 PM

108mph is def solid 12s territory if you can figure out the rest of the setup and driving. Road race setup miatas are pretty bad for drag racing though, honestly not bad!

SimBa Apr 1, 2026 12:47 AM

I'll hopefully go another couple times this season and break into the 12's. If nothing else I want that 110 MPH sticker.

Pretty happy with some progress I made tonight. A while back I grabbed a cheap (around $20) ESP32 board with a display attached to it. The idea was to make a gauge similar to the CanChecked or Link Can gauges. I pulled some libraries, wrote a few classes and such, but after wiring in a buck converter and a CAN transceiver I never had much success. I think it was the classic mentality of "do all the prototyping and development, and then test the final product".

So today I ripped things apart and got them back on the breadboard, simplified the code and plugged into one of the CAN headers on the Link. Sure enough, with a bit of tinkering I was able to get some values popping up on the screen.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7f962ff57b.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...257a09e5a1.jpg


My older code, which was just spoofing sensor values, was much cleaner. I also had some red, yellow and green LED's set up to indicate warnings and errors. Regardless, I'm pretty happy to have a value on the display. Assuming everything is working correctly, I was able to pull IAT, CLT and Oil temp tonight. I wasn't able to get fuel level.

At this point I should be able to slowly add my existing code back in and figure out where the issues are. Eventually, I'd like to 3d print an enclosure for this and mount it on the steering column cover. With the ESP32, CAN transceiver, buck converter and a 3D printed housing, I think this will end up costing around $50. Not bad when a CANChecked is around $300?

ETA - I already am able to monitor most of this using CAN output on the Link to a wireless OBD2 dongle and my phone as a display, but I'd rather have a solution that's integrated into the car and doesn't require my phone being mounted to the dash and loading up an app. Even with a good suction cup mount, I worry about it falling off at an inopportune moment.


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